Her hand tightened in the sheets. “You want me to eat with your psychotic family?”
“I think there’s enough blood in the water already. If I keep you away too much, they’re going to think I’m hiding you.” He went to the vanity and picked up the dress that Odessa had sent, shaking it out to straighten it. “Besides, you’re going to have to keep up your strength to keep up with me, Nadine.”
“Yeah,” she said flatly. “You might take advantage of me.”
Cal gave her an exasperated look before tossing the dress at her. She barely caught it, fingers digging into the thin material.
Nadine turned her back on him as she pulled the dress over her head. It was very short and very low, and every time she tugged at one piece of it, another threatened to expose her entirely.
Cal, who had been watching her struggle with an amused smile, walked over and wound up the laces in the back. She did not like the sucking feel of the garment, as if it were slowly strangling her body in a compressed void.
She did not like the way the brush of his fingers made her bare skin feel electrified.
Having him standing so close behind her made her painfully aware of his size. In the journal, Caledon Cullraven had written—gloated, really—of his dominance over his wives. If he were as tall as his great-grandson, it was no small wonder the women had been cowed into compliance.
“Do you kill your sparrows?” she asked, staring at the open door to his room.
She felt his fingers smooth over the laces. “Only if they run.”
Nadine turned around to face him and caught a glimpse of herself in the reflection of the vanity mirror over his shoulder. She did not recognize the woman in that glass.
Staring at herself in the frame, she said, “Does killing excite you?”
“I suppose you’ll just have to find out, little sparrow.”
Nadine took a step back from him and saw him physically check the impulse to stalk her. So he wanted to chase her, then. To fuck her after that horrible festival, just like his great-grandfather had done to his wife. “What’s the difference between a sparrow and a deer?”
“Oh, Nadine.” Cal sighed. “Must we?”
“I want to know.”
He glanced at the door briefly. “My father has a saying—perhaps he’s said it to you. ‘Dumb as deer.’ Yes?” he said, when her jaw dropped in horrified recognition. “You can fuck a deer and shoot a deer and it will make a fine trophy, but you would never make one the mother of your child. You can breed a deer and not a sparrow. It’s as simple as that.”
“I—that’s one of the most repulsive things I’ve ever heard.”
Cal smiled without humor. “Just be thankful you’re not a deer.”
“Do you . . .eatpeople?”
“What? Jesus, no,” he muttered. “What the hell do you think we are?”
Nadine gave him a look that stated, quite plainly, exactly what she thought he was: the type of person who called people deer and made “venison” in his cellar.
“Fuck.” His arm tightened around his waist. “No more questions. Not to me and especially not to them. Now come to dinner—and no, it isn’t people,” he added, in a voice that was too grim to be amused, “in case that was your next one.”
She had so many more questions, but the forbidding expression on his face made her swallow them back. He’d been surprisingly candid with her thus far, until he hadn’t. Maybe if she didn’t push him now, he would answer more later.
If I’m still alive.
Cal nudged her down the stairs, past the portraits, past the grimacing picture of Evangeline. Knowing what she knew now, Nadine thought she understood why the woman’s gaze had become so haunted and prematurely aged throughout the years. It was the sparrow knowledge weighing on her, becoming a heavier and heavier burden as her husband continued his rampage.
She wondered if her own eyes would look like that if she gave Cal what he wanted.
C H A P T E R
S I X T E E N
? can a monster feel regret? ?
